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Countdown to war on Iran?

On March 18 there will be a demonstration in Parliament Square against a war on Iran.It seems likely that this will have to be the first of many such protests.While only a few months ago Jack Straw was saying military action against Iran was inconceivable, it now appears the warmongers and liars of the US and UK are attempting to lead the international community down that path.Iran is already being billed as a threat to our security. There is no weapons programme but ‘our’ world now follows a policy of preventive, not even pre-emptive, action. Almost any aggression by the strong over the weak is justified.According to a report this week by Brandon Garcia, of freemarketnews.com, Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector who said Iraq disarmed long before the US-led invasion in 2003, has warned his fellow Americans to prepare for a war with Iran.“We just don’t know when, but it’s going to happen,” Scott Ritter he told an audience in Sante Fe on Sunday night.Ritter described how the US government might justify war with Iran in a scenario similar to the buildup to the Iraq invasion. He also argued that Iran wants a nuclear energy program, and not nuclear weapons, but the Bush administration refuses to believe Iran is telling the truth.He predicted the matter will wind up before the UN Security Council, which will determine there is no evidence of a weapons program. (The matter has now been referred to the security council.) Then, he said, John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, “will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves.”“How do I know this? I’ve talked to Bolton’s speechwriter,” Ritter said.Ritter also predicted the military strategy for war with Iran. First, American forces will bomb Iran. If Iranians don’t overthrow the current government, as Bush hopes they will, Iran will probably attack Israel. Then, Ritter said, the United States will drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.The only way to prevent a war with Iran is to elect a Democratically-controlled Congress in November, said Ritter, a lifelong Republican. He later said he wasn’t worried his advice would be seen as partisan because, “It’s a partisan issue.” Most of 44-year-old Ritter’s hour-long speech focused on Iraqi weapons programs from shortly before the Gulf War in 1991 to 2003, when the US invaded Iraq.Ritter was in charge of UN weapons inspections until he resigned in 1998. Before the Iraq invasion, Ritter said, he told Congress that inspections needed to continue.Throughout the 1990s, Ritter said, America’s real policy for Iraq was regime change, not forcing Iraq to disarm and destroy chemical, biological and nuclear-weapons programs. The US insisted on regime change, he said, because it believes transforming the Middle East countries into democracies will help ensure American access to oil.The policy, he said, was borne from a political problem, not a threat to national security.Ritter said the CIA knew Iraq had no ballistic, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by 1995. “We knew there were no WMDs in Iraq,” he said.Ritter blamed Americans’ apathy for allowing Bush to claim there was an intelligence failure. Presidents can lie to the public too easily about national security issues because Americans aren’t paying attention, he said.